Disclaimer: This is a review, and as such will contain opinions, spoilers and (often) general shit talking. (If you talk about what you don’t like about a work, you learn a lot. When you think through a work with the stakes presented to you by the creator, by the context of the work, you learn a lot. I review things, not because I love to dislike things, but because dislike contains rich and vital information for the process of experiencing something, but I cannot access it without interrogating it.) So, if you don’t want to have this thing spoiled for you, or don’t know how to behave when a person on the internet, that you don’t know, has opinions that don’t line up with yours, this review is not for you. It’s also not for the author/creator of the work. Please and thank you.
Loved the vibes from the get go! This book earned a gold star right from the start – it’s dark, it’s moody, it had solid internal logic (her mother’s paranoia passing down to her), it’s creepy, and thankfully Lilia isn’t a DID character even if she is damaged. The characters are rotten to the core and absolutely delicious. The voice actors deserve special mention – fucking spectacular work, especially Shedlock with those accents 🫦
What I particularly appreciated was that the FMC is relatively young but she’s not a complete idiot, which is a refreshing change. Lines like “Harry Potter bitch” are just objectively funny. And the MMC gets off to a good morally black start with his science experiments.
The atmospheric, moody setting as FMC fumbles through her first day at school really works.
The power dynamics are immediately compelling. When Devryck tells Lilia “that’s a 500 dollar coat” and admonishes her to use her own next time when he’s the one on the floor from a seizure – that’s savage and I love it. The antagonistic flirting is poyfect, and moments like when he called out the guy groping her under the table were incredibly satisfying.
I did feel like there was a missed opportunity with Lilia’s sexuality. She chose Devryck’s class to do the video when she could have done it anywhere – this could have been a perfect setup for a demi FMC, where her reasoning for doing it in his class was that she only feels turned on by him, as it stands it feels like an obvious plot device. It would have added nice depth and variety, though I understand he was set up as the Hot Professor™ from the beginning.
The romance and sexual tension isn’t awful. The build-up was excellent – when he was lunging to keep the phone screen from locking (after he confiscated her filming fingering herself in his class) that was so satisfying because that’s exactly what you want him to do, and you want him to want to.
However, once we get to the actual intimate scenes, things start to fall apart. Both of them suddenly start spouting poetic language, and combined with the obsession over his stereotypical physique, I lost that thread of this being dark and reckless and ill-advised. The language goes completely off the rails – “professor of fingering” anyone?
The male gaze issues are rampant (which isn’t unique to this romance). This obsession with the ripped MMC feels really reductive, especially when you consider that women are suckers for a man that can make them laugh or charm them in some emotional way.
Why is it that books written by women for women fall so hard into this patriarchal, male gaze-y trap? Getting that kind of muscle definition is hard af – even bodybuilders struggle with it, and considering his body is not his job, it feels unlikely he’d be so buff while “not spending hours in a gym”.
This makes me think of how even plus sized FMCs are allowed to exist as they are, but their “reward” is the super ripped MMC who sort of deigns to come down from the clouds of perfect beauty and love someone “ordinary”. You’d think we’d be better than this by now.
Speaking of writing, the sex scenes feel overwritten.
When you grew up reading erotica and AO3, a lot of romance books fall short when it comes to true power play. I’ve read erotica short stories that packed more punch in fewer words than these blow-by-blow descriptions that try to cram in tropes and character motivations like butt plugs without flared bases. Rather than build to the climax, we keep stopping for “oh hold on, there’s this one thing we need to remember”. Why? Clarity at emotional climactic moments, people. Plehse!
The spatial awareness is questionable throughout – she’s on her knees and he’s pinning her in place but she can see everything behind her just fine? The writing also suffers from inconsistent POV, dropping out of first person into a more omniscient perspective when convenient. A good round of editing is what this book needed.
There are some nice character moments buried in the mess, tho.
Her dismissing his scientific breakthrough because “a man finally gave her an orgasm” shows her youth and petulance. In the larger scale of things, his breakthrough means more than her orgasm (because she’s already given those to herself thus empowering herself and proving she’s capable of pleasure as a contained entity without someone), while his success has the power to change his daily life for good – yet she can’t quite stretch her little mind that far.
And I will just say that romance authors so often ignore the fact that, when it comes to male genitalia, there are growers and showers, and that showers don’t grow that much. Also, him being into BDSM feels gimmicky rather than organic – it would have made sense that was his way of feeling when he couldn’t feel for so long, but in the end it feels undercooked and thrown in for tropes.
Problems with plot and structure only get worse as the book goes on.
The brother subplot feels like it could have been streamlined. The story isn’t really Devryck’s – which it could have been since he’s the protagonist here and Lilia is kind of just along for the ride. Then the fraternal resolution would make a lot more sense. Since this is dark romance, his brother could have impersonated him more and the solution could have been an MFM relationship – keep the brother close, help him heal while Lilia gets… well, lost opportunity. (Maybe this is another one of those heteronormative imagination problems?)
The pacing becomes too obvious when Lilia and Devryck are suddenly all in love and everything’s easy, running through time to get to the next plot-relevant point. Also, he has his secret entrance to his lab but they have to meet in the library to fuck in secret because his lab is prone to the occasional visitor? But the library isn’t? Make it make sense.
The ending suffers from over-explanation. We get a recap of everything that’s happened like we can’t understand without it being shoved down our throats. The “got all the money she could ever need” resolution is too convenient – why couldn’t it just be tuition and an unrenovated house? Those would have been huge wins considering where she started, and would have given her something to work towards rather than have her life so conveniently tied up for the ending of the book.
Her enthusiasm for science feels like it came out of nowhere. She could have been in pre-med until her mother died, then money goes out the window and her life falls into shambles – that would have given her drive to get back into school and made us root for her win more strongly. As it stands, we only really know her as being kind of wishy-washy about school, focusing on work and kind of happy to settle for lamenting about not being able to be in school.
In the end, Nocticadia keeps the gold star but loses a lot of ground otherwise.
It starts strong with excellent atmosphere, compelling power dynamics, and genuinely entertaining dark characters. The voice acting elevates the experience significantly. However, it loses steam in the middle with overwritten sex scenes, problematic physical descriptions, and pacing issues.
A man not assaulting the woman he’s in love with being treated as noteworthy is a low, low bar – Lilia’s 7 weeks post-assault, still in full PTSD and physical recovery mode, and suddenly they’re completely comfortable with each other? Get outta here with that.
Despite these issues, there’s enough there to keep me engaged, especially if I tuned out the repetitive muscle worship and focused on the genuinely compelling power imbalance and character dynamics (and wrote a different head canon for like 60% of the book as I read).
There’s a potential set up for a book 2, which might explain why certain plot threads (like the MFM possibility) were abandoned. Or not. Unclear. I think this is a standalone. It wasn’t like a strong mirror ending, so it’s hard to say. This was a great concept and setup undermined by execution issues, but had some nice atmospheric dark academia vibes and morally grey characters. Daddy Death and the way he sounds is about the only takeaway I have at the end of the book.
“When Sasha Barrett gets bitten by a snake on a mission, her squad captain’s quick actions not only save her life, but also make her realise something she may have known all along…“
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